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The Storms of Jeremy Thomas
(2021)
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Mark Olsen
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Considering that no one else is likely to make a feature-length portrait of Thomas, it is regretful that this one doesn’t feel more definitive.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
(2023)
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Justin Chang
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It employs no fewer than four narrators across a span of more than six decades, all in service of a deftly multi-threaded yarn that has the elegance and concision of a well-executed magic trick.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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The Exorcist
(1973)
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Charles Champlin
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It is a genuinely shocking movie, which in its ferocious strength and bloodcurdling events denies any possibility that what we are witnessing is anything but a titanic struggle between God and the Devil.
Posted Sep 27, 2023
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The Creator
(2023)
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Glenn Whipp
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Unfortunately, there’s precious little in “The Creator” that feels fresh, particularly if you’ve seen one of the first two “Terminator” movies, watched “The Last of Us” or bought your kid (OK, yourself) a Baby Yoda plush toy.
Posted Sep 26, 2023
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Radical Wolfe
(2023)
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Robert Abele
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The documentary is always lively. Archival clips zip by and nobody ever gets more than a sentence or two before the film cuts away, which means it never burrows in as often as you might want it to, considering the colorful, thick life on display.
Posted Sep 25, 2023
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Neither Confirm nor Deny
(2020)
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Robert Abele
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This is a heist saga designed to enthrall in its ingenuity and ambition, one of the more presentable cases of cowboy spycraft from an us-versus-them time.
Posted Sep 25, 2023
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The Origin of Evil
(2022)
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Glenn Whipp
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The second-hour intrigue is sharp enough to hold your interest and the final bit of untwisting registers as near-perfect.
Posted Sep 22, 2023
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It Lives Inside
(2023)
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Jen Yamato
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All that really saves It Lives Inside from derivative storytelling beats cribbed from a thousand other horror movies is the cultural specificity of its monster as well as the means by which Sam must ultimately face it.
Posted Sep 22, 2023
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Jerry Brown: The Disrupter
(2022)
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Robert Lloyd
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The film, directed by Marina Zenovich, finds him, young and old both, consistently honest and honestly consistent, even in his apparent evasions — a person true to an ever-evolving self.
Posted Sep 19, 2023
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Outlaw Johnny Black
(2023)
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Sarah-Tai Black
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White has offered a jumbled array of all-too-well-trod tropes and stereotypes that, all in all, can’t seem to hit the mark in terms of finding the sweet spot of being “so bad it’s good.”
Posted Sep 18, 2023
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Piaffe
(2022)
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Robert Abele
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The occasional exposure flares and soundtrack sync pops reminds us this is a movie, but also that we’re watching what’s raw and possible in art and life, that it’s good to be open to wherever images and sounds may take us.
Posted Sep 18, 2023
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The Mountain
(2022)
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Gary Goldstein
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Although Pierre’s intentions remain debatable, the story becomes a subtle treatise on solitude, ecology and, it would seem, following your bliss.
Posted Sep 18, 2023
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Dumb Money
(2023)
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Robert Abele
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Gillespie captures a hot-topic milieu of desperation and excitement populated by schemers. His love of actors is a plus, but his understanding of how they mix foibles, charms, and fears is uncommonly good.
Posted Sep 18, 2023
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A Million Miles Away
(2023)
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Michael Ordoña
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A Million Miles Away doesn’t exactly zoom past the stratosphere, but it’s kept in orbit by Hernández’s inspirational true story and the comfort of family ties.
Posted Sep 18, 2023
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A Haunting in Venice
(2023)
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Justin Chang
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For all the creakily derivative supernatural hokum on display, the ghosts that haunt this movie turn out to be all too persuasively real.
Posted Sep 14, 2023
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Rotting in the Sun
(2023)
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Justin Chang
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What holds the movie together, for all its jittery syntax and rug-pulling midpoint twist, is the furiously combative, contrapuntal energy that courses between Silva and Firstman.
Posted Sep 11, 2023
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My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
(2023)
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Robert Abele
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It’s a rom-com both com-less and rom-less.
Posted Sep 11, 2023
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Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
(2022)
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Robert Abele
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Aristotle and Dante is distinguished by its atmosphere of compassion in which expression thrives.
Posted Sep 11, 2023
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Traffic
(2000)
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Kenneth Turan
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Yet another indication of how accomplished a filmmaker Steven Soderbergh has become.
Posted Sep 08, 2023
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Our Father, The Devil
(2022)
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Robert Abele
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A smart, chilling, and moody thriller set in a quaint French town, where the ghosts of an African immigrant’s traumatic past pay an unnerving, unwanted and consequential visit.
Posted Sep 05, 2023
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Perpetrator
(2023)
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Noel Murray
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This is the kind of movie where, at any moment, the editor might throw in an insert shot of an oozing orifice, keeping viewers on their toes.
Posted Sep 05, 2023
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Shocker
(1989)
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Michael Wilmington
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Ever since he directed the first “Nightmare on Elm Street” in 1984, abandoning the sequels to others, Craven may be haunted by the fact that he made what many regard as the single scariest genre horror movie of the decade.
Posted Sep 05, 2023
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Wildcat
(2023)
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Justin Chang
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It’s the seriousness of its ambitions and the intellectual heft of its engagement with its subject that makes this under-the-radar entry a must-see.
Posted Sep 03, 2023
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Rustin
(2023)
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Justin Chang
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A straightforward but stirring portrait of the undersung civil rights activist Bayard Rustin.
Posted Sep 03, 2023
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Nyad
(2023)
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Justin Chang
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Vasarhelyi and Chin... clearly have a gift for mining extreme sports for suspense and excitement.
Posted Sep 03, 2023
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When a Man Loves a Woman
(1994)
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Kenneth Turan
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The Greens’ predicament doesn’t move you as much as the quality of the acting makes you think it would. As crisis mounts on crisis, the wires of manipulation become too visible and you start to feel uncomfortably like an emotional dartboard.
Posted Sep 01, 2023
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El Conde
(2023)
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Justin Chang
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Bitingly funny, bountifully gory and mercifully filmed in black-and-white, El Conde spins a haunted, hemoglobin-rich origin story for brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet
Posted Sep 01, 2023
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Poor Things
(2023)
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Justin Chang
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It may be the first Lanthimos movie in which this unsparing filmmaker doesn’t just slice his characters open but actually likes what he sees.
Posted Sep 01, 2023
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You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah
(2023)
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Gary Goldstein
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Open your heart and turn off your logic meter and you‘re going to enjoy “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah.”
Posted Aug 29, 2023
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Retribution
(2023)
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Noel Murray
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Neeson has become such a pro at this that he can make a stressed-out guy in a wired-up car thrilling enough.
Posted Aug 29, 2023
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Love Life
(2022)
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Robert Abele
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It mixes the mundane with the inexplicable, and empathy with alienation, to nuanced, if never fully stirring effect.
Posted Aug 29, 2023
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Mutt
(2023)
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Robert Abele
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It’s... squarely openhearted in depicting what the freshly transitioned must navigate just to be (and explain) themselves, when all anyone else can seem to latch on to is the narrative of change they experience.
Posted Aug 29, 2023
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Golda
(2023)
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Justin Chang
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The more glaring problem is that Golda itself never rises above the level of an actor’s showcase, never achieves — despite some noticeable effort — a more complicated, challenging reading of history.
Posted Aug 25, 2023
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Moscow on the Hudson
(1984)
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Sheila Benson
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There is enough magic -- enough original and deeply touching characters, portrayed by new and wonderful actors in the first half or perhaps two-thirds of Moscow to carry you over its rocky final section.
Posted Aug 22, 2023
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Landscape with Invisible Hand
(2023)
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Michael Rechtshaffen
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A slyly subversive sci-fi satire that packs a sensory kick.
Posted Aug 21, 2023
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Strays
(2023)
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Gary Goldstein
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An at times heartfelt and enjoyably observed story that may hold interest with more patient viewers but, due to some episodic scene work and slack pacing, leave others restless.
Posted Aug 21, 2023
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Aurora's Sunrise
(2022)
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Noel Murray
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In director Inna Sahakyan’s medium-bending Aurora’s Sunrise, the animation is essential, not just to understanding the story but to grasping its purpose.
Posted Aug 21, 2023
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The Eternal Memory
(2023)
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Robert Abele
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What rings truest and richest about The Eternal Memory, as exquisitely humane a film as you’re likely to see all year, [i]s what abiding love and stewardship look like in the moment.
Posted Aug 21, 2023
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Simone: Woman of the Century
(2021)
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Robert Abele
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Ultimately, the restless approach, ever-roaming camera, and operatic flourishes create a skimming effect, when we hunger for a fuller portrait of the scarred, steely soul driven to alleviate suffering and counter injustice, against all odds.
Posted Aug 21, 2023
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All Up in the Biz
(2023)
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Noel Murray
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The Biz Markie story is not framed as a tragedy here. It’s a celebration of a lovable weirdo who made people happy.
Posted Aug 18, 2023
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Heart of Stone
(2023)
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Noel Murray
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The slam-bang stuff in this picture is too tediously routine.
Posted Aug 18, 2023
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The Adults
(2023)
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Mark Olsen
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A warm, wry dramedy that finds fresh resonance and insights from the story of three siblings each trying to move forward in their own way.
Posted Aug 18, 2023
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The Pod Generation
(2023)
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Robert Abele
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The movie’s core is as inert as an uncharged iPhone, taking most of the sting out of its cautionary satire.
Posted Aug 14, 2023
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Aporia
(2023)
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Robert Abele
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Aporia needn’t stay one step ahead of smart viewers to keep us intrigued and off-balance, glued to how these flawed, well-intentioned characters use their irrevocable power and face the consequences.
Posted Aug 14, 2023
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Our Body
(2023)
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Justin Chang
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French director and cinematographer Claire Simon works with a patient, unobtrusive tenderness that seems to echo that of the doctors and nurses she’s filming.
Posted Aug 11, 2023
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Klondike
(2022)
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Katie Walsh
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""Klondike" is certainly not an easy watch, but it is a profound one — a film that feels both prescient and retrospective about Ukraine, locked in what seems a never-ending existential conflict with its neighbor."
Posted Aug 09, 2023
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A Compassionate Spy
(2022)
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Noel Murray
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This absorbing, thoughtful film doesn’t take sides... Instead, via interviews, film clips and dramatic re-creations, A Compassionate Spy revisits the changing world the Halls passed through together.
Posted Aug 07, 2023
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LOLA
(2022)
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Noel Murray
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Even with all the metaphysical mayhem, the movie remains rooted in the lives and attitudes of its characters, and in the magnetic performances of Martini and Appleton.
Posted Aug 07, 2023
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The Beasts
(2022)
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Carlos Aguilar
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For its second half, in the aftermath of a twist that shouldn’t be spoiled, the film takes on an unexpected depth and even a semblance of closure, though it shouldn’t be a surprise that no one fully gets what they want.
Posted Aug 07, 2023
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KOKOMO CITY
(2023)
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Michael Rechtshaffen
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Kokomo City provides a humanizing, inclusive way forward.
Posted Aug 07, 2023
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